With a certain frequency, commentators see fit to worry as to the extinction of the US middle class. One among these, it seems, is one Edward Luce, who composed a piece on “The crisis of middle-class America” for the Financial Times. The piece profiles two families making about $70k/yr each, and worries as to the future of them and families like them. Both are, by coincidence, families of loyal Democrats, and the piece sports the requisite concerns about the potential dangers of tea party barbarians howling at the gates of the US order.

I feel myself in an odd position in regards to such stories. The particular definition of “middle class” picked for the story is a family income threshold which five years ago was frustratingly above our families income, and which now is embarrassingly below it. In this regard, I recognize myself to be uncharacteristically fortunate. However, having recently made a good deal less than this (and coming from a family which never exceeded such a total, even adjusting for inflation) I feel that I have some familiarity with the sort of middle class world being discussed — while I can’t escape the feeling that this seems a very squalid and foreign world to the Financial Times writer.

Added to this sense of class conflict is that Luce seeks to build up his story with juxtapositions of facts which sound like they mean more than they do. Read the rest of this entry »

CatholicVote is mounting a campaign to bring attention to 3 Catholic Hospitals that are closing. The CEO said that ObamaCare “absolutely” factored into the decision.

This is certainly a troubling concern, made more so by the allegations that the White House, the local media, and Sr. Keehan have tried their best to quiet the story.

However, one has to be cautious. The report that CV apparently relies on is based on a doctor’s opinion-a doctor that does not appear to have any knowledge of the actual discussions at the hospitals in question. This unnamed doctor alleges that it is due to Obamacare restricting the ability of the hospital to collect Medicare reimbursements and thereby making its debt unbearable.

There are few stories, if any, better in college football than Jarrett Lee. A guy booed off the field in 2007 for his INTs, including a game where he got crushed in the Swamp, comes back to lead LSU to come from behind wins against Tennessee and then again at the Swamp. The Mad Hatter is 6-0.

Mad props to South Carolina. Used the bye week to perfection and embarrassed a team last week had their fans booking trips to Glendale.

Finally, some real chaos. Bama’s lost their margin for error. Ohio St., Oregon, and Nebraska look like the favorites to finish undefeated in their conferences. LSU & Auburn remain undefeated in the SEC. Oklahoma and Michigan St. also remain underdogs to win out their conference. And the BCS Busters remain undefeated (Boise St., TCU, & Utah). Apparently, Boise St. is likely to be #1 when the BCS comes out next week but truly only LSU & Auburn control their own destiny.

So who gets #1? Is a one-loss Bama team better than an undefeated BCS Buster? This is a week to fight over the rankings, so let’s get to them after this reminder that LSU inspires its fans to pursue holiness!

If you’re interested in learning how to drive a stake into the heart of the welfare and warfare state then read this post…

As my original post and follow-up post explained, until a year ago I didn’t have hardly any real understanding of the monetary (and banking) system. You might find it helpful to listen to the this talk given by G. Edward Griffin. It caused a paradigm shift to occur with how I understood these matters and how I now invest. It may be one of the most important hours you ever spend studying a secular topic. You can listen to it straight off Google videos. Make the time to listen to it.

After listening to his talk watch the following helpful video on the Federal Reserve. For some unknown reason the video doesn’t automatically begin so give it a tiny nudge forward and it will begin playing.

Few days provide so great an occasion for an orgy of self-hatred (among the white elites) and faux moral outrage as Columbus Day. But long before communists, socialists, and their fellow-travelers seized control of our educational institutions and rewrote the history of the Western civilization – a revision which is force-fed to most students in our public reeducation centers – Columbus was celebrated as a great explorer and a daring adventurer who undertook great hardships to undergo the voyage that would lead to the discovery of the New World. Pope Leo XIII, on the 400th anniversary (1892) of that famous voyage, wrote of Columbus in Quarto Abeunte Saeculo:

By his toil another world emerged from the unsearched bosom of the ocean: hundreds of thousands of mortals have, from a state of blindness, been raised to the common level of the human race, reclaimed from savagery to gentleness and humanity; and, greatest of all, by the acquisition of those blessings of which Jesus Christ is the author, they have been recalled from destruction to eternal life.

I have often said that politics is not rocket science, but now we have a rocket scientist running for Congress! Ruth McClung is a physicist who works as a rocket scientist. She is strongly pro-life:

The value of life should not be taken lightly. Should I be elected, I would stand for the life of unborn babies. I would stand for protection of our elderly. I would also fight to defend animals against cruelty. Society must stand for those who cannot defend themselves or society is lost.

President Lyndon B Johnson said, “You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is, knowing what is right.” I believe this statement is applicable to abortion.

I doubt that many would argue that the taking of an innocent life is wrong. The argument then begins with the question, “When does that life become a baby.” Since I have an aunt and a cousin that both spent less time in the womb than many late term abortion babies, I cannot believe that those babies are not fully human and do not deserve the full rights of humans, including the right to life. I will support the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. My opponent is one of the 71 co-sponsors of H.R. 1964, which would nullify the national ban on partial-birth abortion.

I am also convinced that the humanity of a baby has nothing to do with whether or not it is in the womb. At a “million cells” is it just cells, then at a “million and one cells” is it human? There is no dividing line between non-life and life. We cannot devalue a human life in this way. We must stand for life from the first cell! If not, then we start down a dangerous path that will quickly lead to a culture of death in our society. Is it not always better to error on the side of life?

I do not believe that many would suggest a young girl should do something that would cause her emotional pain for the rest of her life. This brings me to the second life that abortion hurts – it is the life of the would-be mother. We are giving young girls a huge choice that will affect them for the rest of their lives. We need a society that stands up for these girls. I understand that a girl may not be able to take care of a child at that point in her life, but I can say with surety that there will always be a family waiting to adopt that child. This will release that girl from the emotional burden that she may carry for the rest of her life.